


On The Subject of Treason

by Saesama



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Friendship despite politics, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-03-12 03:56:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3342764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saesama/pseuds/Saesama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Baine never wanted this task, but he also never expected it would take him as far as he has gone. One apology of many.</p><p>(Spoilers for War Crimes)</p>
            </blockquote>





	On The Subject of Treason

The guards at the door, an orc and a troll, eyed him warily as he approached. Baine couldn't blame them. He'd struck Vol'jin a terrible blow that day, both as a person and as Warchief. What difference now did it make if he finished Garrosh's despicable attack for him?

No. He'd exposed the Warchief for a violent individual who hated Garrosh, who was willing to do what he could for the Horde, nothing more. Nothing that anyone who had interacted with Vol'jin over the last few years couldn't come away with on their own. Still, it took more nerves than he was willing to admit to step between the guards and into the rooms of his Warchief. The troll guard looked, briefly, like she wanted to say something, but she swallowed the words and didn't stop him.

He'd never needed an invite to enter this place before, not while Go'el or Vol'jin sat on the throne, but for the first time since Garrosh, he felt unwelcome. This first room was a study of sorts, books and scrolls on a shelf to one side, the other wall plastered in maps. The room held traces of the previous owner; the furniture was all of orcish make, and the lantern stand jutting from the wall was made from Mannorath's thigh bone. But the troll nature of the current owner overlaid it like a rush'kha mask; a brazier in the corner whispered out whiffs of jungle herbs and dark magic, a broad wooden mask leered down from the wall beside the maps, a wicked glaive of Pandaren make hung where an orc axe once occupied, an arrow with a red shaft and blue fletching rested on the table; Vol'jin fiddled with this last, when his mind was occupied and his hands restless.

Vol'jin stood now at the table in the center of the room, his back to the door. The table was covered with missives; Vol'jin appeared to be catching up on the reports he received daily. He slit the seal on a new one as Baine entered, his head turned just enough to confirm the identity of his guest, his posture stiff and formal. Baine waited. Vol'jin finally gave him a slight dip of his head, not even a full nod. Hurt and relieved both, Baine stepped up to the table.

The tension in the room was thick and personal. Vol'jin read the report as if Baine wasn't there, cool and composed, and it was worse than if the troll had decided to just attack him. Vol'jin was cruel when his pride was wounded, hadn't Baine shown the world that just this afternoon? And now Baine was on the receiving end of that terrible, cold anger. He'd never been afraid of Vol'jin, and wasn't even now, but this was still a dangerous place to be.

Vol'jin had said earlier that the price for treason in his Horde was death. Were Baine's actions enough to warrant that?

Baine took a deep breath. "I came to say that I am sorry," he said. Vol'jin didn't look at him, but his eyes stopped tracking words across the page in his hands. "I never meant for this, for any of this, to happen this way."

"Ya done nothing wrong," Vol'jin said, cool as if Baine was a guard begging for forgiveness for some blunder, as if they hadn't called each other 'brother' for the better part of two decades. "Your duties as Chu'shao be important, Baine, and I not gonna strike ya down for performin' them."

Hot anger welled in Baine's throat. "I am not here to apologize for performing the duty _you gave me_ , Warchief!" he snapped, his long temper frayed short by the fiasco that was this trial. Vol'jin did look up at that, his gold eyes narrowed to slits, and Baine forced himself to let go of his anger. "I came to say that I'm sorry," he continued, quiet and with his heart simmering in remorse. "For what I did to _you,_ Vol'jin."

Vol'jin stared at him for a long moment, then he sighed, the painful formality bleeding out of him as his shoulders slumped. "I should be the one sorry," he said. "I ask ya to do this, because you'd do it right, then I underestimate how far your sense of right go. Be shameful of me, to think you'd let me off easy."

"I accused you of treason," Baine said softly. "You have no reason to apologize to me."

"But it be true, ain't it?" Vol'jin countered. "I lead the siege on this city myself. That be pretty damn treacherous."

"It was necessary."

"So be this."

Baine blew air through his nose, shaking his head. "What has the world become," he asked. "Where we stand here and debate acceptable levels of treason and betrayal?"

"Ya haven't betrayed me, Baine," Vol'jin said, the closest he had ever heard the troll get to a tone that could be described as 'gentle'. His hand closed around Baine's shoulder. "I betray myself in them words, in not being more discreet in my hatred. Few in the Horde now gonna fault me for 'em, and to hell with what the Alliance be thinking of me."

Baine returned the embrace, Vol'jin's bare shoulder warm under his palm. "This is a disaster," he admitted. "Tyrande removed any chance of leniency for Garrosh today, and I be- I attacked you in a fel attempt to get it back. I'm going to attack Go'el, I'm going to attack others, and I don't even _want_ to win."

Vol'jin dipped his head, pressing their foreheads together, an old, comforting, tauren gesture. "Garrosh gonna die eventually," he said. "Be it rotting in a Pandaren prison or by clean execution or by assassin strike, he gonna die. We gonna die, maybe the same way. But until then, we gonna live through this, stronger for it. I be seeing the mistakes I made, Go'el be seeing his, and Garrosh gonna have his mistakes shoved down his throat."

Baine chuckled, butting his head lightly against Vol'jin before he stepped back. "Come back to Mulgore with me, brother," he said. "Betrayal or no, a peace offering is called for, and the tobacco crop this season is a good one."

He hadn't called Vol'jin such since the troll became Warchief. He waited, oddly nervous, until Vol'jin's face softened into a crooked, rarely seen smile that held no gleeful malice. "I may do just that, brother," he replied, his hand squeezing briefly on Baine's shoulder. "We gonna take the zeppelin, though. The night air gonna clear our heads before we muddle them up with smoke."

"A good plan," Baine agreed, leading the way out between the stoic and slightly bemused guards. The hurts of this farce weren't healed yet, not by a long shot, and there were more to come.

But this was a start, and it was enough for now.


End file.
